Sweet Chemise

I just completed the sweet chemise project from the book Simple Sewing with a French Twist. It was my first apparel project. The instructions were fairly clear, and had good diagrams, but I really missed not having my mother-in-law around. She was a great help when I got stuck on my last project. The neckline gave me the most trouble, but I was able to muddle through.

Overall, it turned out fine, though not as easy as I expected. I think it would not be easy for a person without computer skills to properly enlarge and print the pattern on a photocopier, as suggested. I also found the order of instructions a little strange, and the length a lot longer than it looked in the book’s picture, although my measurements did match up. I guess I thought it would be more of a shirt than a dress. In the future I’ll try making this again, but with softer fabric and maybe a tad wider around the bust area. I would guess the end product to be about a size 2-4, which is surprising, and could be really disappointing for someone with a decent-sized chest. It would have been a little looser if I hadn’t followed the directions for french seams (check out Stardust Shoe’s blog for a good example), but it was a technique I wanted to try.

I did a search to see how other people’s sweet chemise projects turned out but only found Robin at That Silly Girl. Hers actually turned out short by accident. She also shares a link to Belle Epoque’s Tie-top Tank tutorial that looks really cute. I think I might try that next time.

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4 thoughts on “Sweet Chemise”

You did a nice job on the chemise. 🙂 Sometimes the things that appear the easiest to sew are actually harder, especially for beginners. So far I haven’t found any type of commercial sewing pattern that is perfect–most of them need some type of alteration before beginning to sew. All of this work in the beginning actually saves a lot of work when sewing the project out of fashion fabric.

Did the instructions suggest the types of fabric that might work best when sewing this chemise? Also, were any measurements given–especially the finished garment measurements? I’m basically just curious.

I don’t know why, but I thought this project might have been easier than a commercial sewing pattern (which I’ve only used once for an apron class where I had the teacher’s help). This chemise would have been much easier for you, with your experience.